“Make sure that the EU is a world leader in safety and security of transport in all modes of transport.” Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area — Towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system- Transport White Paper 2011. This is the long term ambitious role of the European Commission set out in the Transport White Paper in 2011. Prior to this, the European Commission adopted a Communication entitled “Towards a European Road Safety Area: policy orientations on road safety 2011-2020” on the 20th of July 2010. ETSC welcomed the adoption of a new EU target to reduce road deaths by 50% by 2020. Targets motivate stakeholders to act and help those responsible for the road transport system to be accountable for achieving defined results. A shared target at European level helps each Member State to see that its road safety improvements are contributing to addressing a Europe-wide problem. The adoption of the EU target in 2001 gave a boost to the combined efforts at national and EU level. As a result, reductions in the number of deaths have been much steeper in 2001-2009 than in preceding decades. In order to achieve the 50% reduction target in 2020 the EU will inevitably have to go above and beyond current reduction trends. CARS21 should drive the discussion on how vehicle safety and vehicle to infrastructure communication can help contributing to reduce road deaths by 50% again by 2020. ETSC recommends CARS 21 to identify how vehicle safety and vehicle to infrastructure communication can contribute to reaching the 2020 EU target to reduce road deaths by 50%. (Author/publisher)
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